THE GOLDEN RULE: What is the psychology of investing?

SHARE | Sunday, 29 March 2015 | By Nelson Letswhene

There are many ways to look at the rich. A lot of people always wonder how they did or how they are doing it. But then sometimes you see a person you perceive to be rich or wealthy, and the next thing you look again, they are broke or in some financial trouble. It is very common that a lot of aspiring investors or wealth builders look at those they believe have made it and seek to emulate them. The question is – what is the psychology of investing or of wealth building?Bob Proctor, who wrote a book called Born Rich, which you can actually get for free, talks about the philosophy of wealth building that he followed. He talks about listening for hours to records of Earl Nightingale wherever he went. He also talks about reading Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich. In that book, Napoleon Hill interviewed five hundred American millionaires to get the philosophy of wealth building. Bob Proctor talks about his commitment to reading that book every single day. He realised that the only way to build wealth was to be a wealthy person from inside first. A wealthy person thinks wealthy thoughts and these transform him from within. He says even though he tried many different businesses, the wealth was not in the businesses that he ran. These only made him tired. Wealth only started to roll out and remain with him when he was wealthy from within. He started to see every possible opportunity, and the best ways to exploit those opportunities. He could see no obstacle because he did not think in terms of obstacles. He only thought in terms of success. Many people are running around looking for opportunities for wealth building while ignoring to make themselves wealthy from within. This reminds me of Russel Conwell’s Acres of Diamonds speech, which you can also get for free if you want. The psychology of an investor starts with your willingness to work on yourself. The markets will yield to you only as much as you are able to handle. Your ability to handle wealth starts with you building that capacity from within. Bob Proctor talks about the power of repetition. This is the willingness to listen to empowering programmes over and over again. Or to read an empowering book over and over again, until the concepts are you and you are the concepts. To this very day, at the age of 82, he still reads Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, which he started reading 52 years ago when he was 30. Malcom Gladwell wrote in his book, Outliers, about what he called the ten thousand hours rule. This talks about people who are willing to focus on one thing for over ten thousand hours before they are considered experts. This is virtually 10 years of focusing on specialising on one thing, before you can be considered an expert in it. It is only when you are considered an expert at a thing that people start looking for you. Then the money will come through. As you can see, the one ingredient in the psychology of investing and wealth building is focused determination and patience. You cannot be a scatterbrain and hope to succeed. You can’t be doing one thing for one year, and the next year you change and do another. You are looking for quick riches, but you are not really building wealth. If you look at most successful people, you will see that they are really known for one or two things. They have spent a lot of time on that one thing and they know it in and out. What are you working on? To your success! Mail me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Follow the blog on www.7moneyskills.wordpress.com or follow me on Facebook or twitter @101silverline.